Howard, a retired professor of physical education at Central Michigan University, had her orange tabby Simba less than a year when the young cat was struck in the eye with an arrow.

Simba, who is currently sporting his summer “lion” fur style cut by a groomer at Northwoods Pet Care Center, is alive and well, still taking his morning walks on Howard’s property in Isabella County’s Deerfield Township.

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With several pairs of cardinals, and other birds and wildlife to see with his one eye, Simba strolls Howard’s woods every day, not venturing too far after the incident that nearly killed him almost 13 years ago.

During bow deer season, Simba was on a walk when someone shot him, the arrow going through his eye and out of the back of his skull.

Simba made it home, and Howard rushed him to her veterinarian, but the office was closed.

She took Simba to veterinarian Charles Stirling at Mt. Pleasant Animal Hospital, who performed the surgery that saved Simba.

“It took him probably about a week before he gained confidence to get that depth perception back,” Howard said. “That was hard to see.”

Simba often tried to jump onto chairs and other furniture, would miss, and fall, she said.

But, as Howard said, nature is a wonderful thing, and Simba adapted to his one-eyed, one sided life.

What bothers Howard more than anything about what happened to Simba, who is almost 14 years old, is that the shooting and maiming of her cat was not accidental.

Simba was looking up when the arrow was shot from someone in a tree stand, she said.

“If that cat was to be a target, the arrow would have gone through his side,” she said. “This is what the police said.

“This is abject animal cruelty.”

It also bothers her that the shooting affected the pleasure center in Simba’s brain, and he is not the contented, happy cat he once was.

“His brain was damaged, therefore changing him,” she said. “Where he was once a very affectionate cat, he’s aloof.”

But Simba gets by fine, sharing Howard’s country home with Sparty, a Yorkie-Poodle mix, and Tootsie, a Poodle mix.